The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

THE STATE SANATORIUMUnder the Management of the State Board of Health—BoardAnnounces Definite and Comprehensive State PoHcyfor DeaHn^ with TuberculosisThe management of the State Sanatoriumhas been transferred, by legislativeenactment of the Special Sessionof the General Assembly, to theState Board of Health. The transferwas initiated and engineered by theformer Board of Directors of the Institution.While the State Board ofHealth had not asked for the Institution,the Board very cheerfully acceptsthe responsibility of management. Webelieve the Institution to be capableof filling a very real need in the lifeof the State, and that it has a verybright future. The State Sanatoriumwill represent a part of a generalpolicy of the State Board of Healthfor dealing with the problem of tuberculosis.State Boards of Health should lookupon tuberculosis as something distinctivefrom the general run of preventablediseases. One-fourth of ca.11preventable deaths is due to tuberculosis.That means that one-fourth ofthe opportunity of State Boards ofHealth, and other health boards, forthat matter, is tied up in the managementof the tuberculosis problem.These considerations are responsiblefor the adoption by the State Board ofHealth of the followingState Tuberculosis Policy.The central idea of this policy isone of education. The educationalscheme will embrace the Sanatoriumas a sort of central school, and aBureau of Tuberculosis, to be establishedin connection with the generalhealth work, as a correspondenceschool. The State Sanatorium, by thefirst of January, will have a capacityfor 125 patients, which will be sufficientfor the treatment of 250 patientsa year, assuming the stay of the averagepatient to be six months. In theInstitution these people will be taughtby personal contact, by illustrated lectures,and by the rules of the Institutionhow to readjust their lives toNature's laws and so secure a newlease on life, and how to live withothers without infecting them. Thistraining will be carried back by these250 patients a year into their communitiesand counties, and its influence willbe of great benefit to their fellow sufferersat home who have been unableto attend the training school.The Bureau of Tuberculosis will havereported to it, under the requirementsof a recent enactment, seventy-five oreighty per cent of all recognizablecases of tuberculosis in this State.These people, from 8,000 to 10,000 victimsof the disease, will be matriculatedas members of a correspondenceschool for tuberculosis. At the headof this Bureau will be a man whoknows how to write a strong, personal,appealing letter,—a man of great resourcefulnessand tact, and a manabove all with a deep, sincere, altruisticnature. In an unofficious way and